The goal of Buddhist practice is not to escape from the world but to transform our relationship with it.

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with.

Real freedom is not about controlling our experience, but about being free within our experience.

Compassion is not just about being kind to others. It's about being kind to ourselves as well.

Awareness is always with us. We don't need to create it or achieve it - we just need to recognize what's already there.

As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.

The cultivation of loving-kindness has the power to transform enmity into amity, hostility into hospitality.

One moment can change a day, one day can change a life, and one life can change the world.

The time of the past becomes the present, the time of the present becomes the future, the time of the future becomes the present, and the time of the present becomes the past.

The essence of Buddhism is not a belief system but a systematic investigation of our experience.

The nature of everything is illusory and ephemeral, those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness, like they who lick the honey from a razor's edge.

Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.

The practice of patience guards us against losing our presence of mind.

The Buddha's teaching is a teaching of self-reliance, of being one's own master, one's own refuge.

Our own life has to be our message.

The real meaning of enlightenment is to gaze with undimmed eyes on all darkness.

The state of mind that exists when you sit in the right posture is, itself, enlightenment.

The goal of meditation is not to achieve a blank mind, but to gain insight into the nature of mind itself.

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

Hope and fear come from feeling that we lack something; they come from a sense of poverty. We can't simply relax with ourselves. We hold on to hope, and hope robs us of the present moment.

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger perspective, energizes us. We feel connected. But if that's all that's happening, we get arrogant and start to look down on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness becomes tinged by craving and addiction. On the other hand, wretchedness--life's painful aspect--softens us up considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person.

In the monastery of your body, the monk of your mind must stay in retreat.

The most important things in our practice are our physical posture and our way of breathing.

Liberation is not found by running away from our experience but by looking deeply into it.

The root of suffering is not in the world outside us but in our own minds.

If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.

Equanimity is not indifference. It is the balanced mind that sees things clearly without reaction.

If you want to understand suffering, you must look into the situation at hand. The teachings say that wherever a problem arises it must be settled right there.

Awareness is the basis, or what you might call the "support," of the mind. It is steady and unchanging, like the pole to which the flag of ordinary consciousness is attached.

The path of practice moves from faith through understanding to direct realization.

When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharma intimately.

The nature of everything is empty and clear, and the mind is beyond both existence and nonexistence.